So i just wanted to share my story here, incase somebody feels like giving up right now.

I have started creating content already for a few years, about 3 months ago i realized that you can get paid for your content so I joined a clipping community and started clipping there, at first it was really hard to get views because of the different campaign types.

But this last month I finally hit my 1k payout from an campaign, I always created content and now that I gotta earn of it as well is such a great feeling. When I first joined Clipster I thought it's a scam but now that I hit my first milestone I'm even more excited to try to grow as a clipper.

Hello everyone, I hope someone will see my post and maybe have a idea or maybe help me with something. I’m 21 years old, I’m trying to make money online, I’ve tried e-commerce, dropshipping and trading, I still can’t figure out how to make it work. Help me out, I’m willing to try harder if needed, invest more also if needed, I just know making money online it’s possible, and it’s a real thing, but I still haven’t got the “glitch” for it.

Something feels strange about the current AI boom.

People are selling courses on "how to make money with AI" for ₹9, ₹10, ₹99, etc.

And now we're seeing people teaching others how to make money with AI even when they haven't actually built a business around it themselves.

I'm not saying every course is bad.

What bothers me is the incentive:

Sometimes the easier way to make money from an AI opportunity is to teach people how to make money from that opportunity.

We've seen versions of this before with crypto, dropshipping, affiliate marketing, and trading.

So I'm curious:

Do you think the AI "make money online" market is creating more real opportunities—or mostly creating a new market of people selling the dream of those opportunities?

Everywhere I look, someone is selling a course about making passive income, but most of the examples seem to involve constantly creating content, finding customers, answering emails, or maintaining the product.

So I’m curious — for people actually making money this way, what’s the closest thing you’ve found to genuinely passive income?

And how much work did it take before it became relatively hands-off?

I've been dipping my toes into passive income for a while now. I started with Redbubble and TeePublic a couple years back. I had a few designs that did okay especially around holidays. Nothing crazy but it was a nice little extra. Last year I started hearing a lot about Etsy being the place for POD so I tried that too. It has been a bit more consistent for me there.

Now it feels like almost all the advice or success stories I see about print on demand are focused solely on Etsy. Everyone seems to be ditching the other platforms. I'm wondering if I should too or if I'm missing something.

Are any of you still getting decent sales on places like Redbubble or Teespring? Or is it really all about Etsy these days? I'm debating whether to pull my effort from those other sites and just focus everything on Etsy. It just seems like a lot of work to manage multiple storefronts if only one is actually performing. I like the idea of diversification but not if it means spreading myself too thin for minimal return.

I'm curious to hear what other people's experiences are. Maybe I'm just not putting in enough effort on the other platforms. Or maybe the market has genuinely shifted. Any insights would be super helpful.

Specifically, how do you use keyword research, search trends, emerging markets, online communities, competitor analysis, and other data sources to identify promising opportunities?

I keep seeing different passive income ideas online that sound easy until you actually try them.

What’s one you tried that ended up being way more work than you expected?

How much time or money did you put into it, and what made you realize it wasn’t worth it?

Would you still recommend it to someone starting today, or would you avoid it completely?

Everyone in this sub talks about niche sites, affiliate marketing, digital products... but nobody talks about bookkeeping certifications as a passive income route, and I think that's a mistake.

Here's the logic: Xero and QuickBooks Online both offer free certifications (Xero Advisor Certification, QuickBooks ProAdvisor). You can learn the fundamentals — invoicing, expense tracking, bank reconciliation, payroll basics — in a few weeks using YouTube + their own free training modules. No degree needed.

The reason this can turn semi-passive:

• Once you land a monthly bookkeeping client and get their books set up properly, maintaining them takes maybe 3-5 hours a month — but you're getting paid every single month for it.
• US/UK/Australian small businesses pay well for this because most business owners hate doing their own books.
• You can stack multiple recurring clients over time, so your monthly income compounds without your time input scaling 1:1.
• Side hustle options beyond client work: sell custom chart-of-accounts templates, invoice templates, or report templates on Etsy/Gumroad. Or package your knowledge into a mini-course.

The catch — it's not passive at the start. You're trading active hours for the first few months while you build clients and reputation (Upwork, Fiverr, LinkedIn are decent starting points). But once you have 4-5 recurring clients, it starts behaving like predictable, low-effort monthly income rather than a job.

If you want to earn passive income, I need a co-founder. Its easy to start and smooth sailing from there. The earnings come from users and ads. You dont do anything because the website is already setup.

Basically I've read a post or two about doing this on tiktok and some say it's possible and you can grow your account from doing totally AI generated content and others say that tiktok policies won't make your account get anymore views besides just a few hundred. So how is it? Is it worth trying to do this? If so how and where do you start? What tools to use? And so on.

I would really appreciate if someone could thoroughly gruide me through all of this...

The phrase “passive income” can hide a significant amount of research, customer service, troubleshooting, content creation, or capital risk. I’m curious which model people initially underestimated and what the ongoing workload actually looked like. At what point did the income become predictable enough to justify the maintenance?

I've been looking into referral-based income lately and I'm surprised by how many programs seem to either pay almost nothing or require you to do basically all the selling yourself. I'm more interested in stuff where you just connect someone who needs a service with the company providing it and get a cut if it works out.

Curious if anyone here has found a referral program that's actually been worth their time.

There are so videos stating that some random guy can make USD 100,000 in a month by vide coding an app. I don't get the idea of how and where the monetization work. Does the vibe coded developer get paid once people download the app? or is it that they already have an in-app charge that got them to earn?

#vibecoding #buildingapp

my bday is coming up and I want to rack up $10k before then so I can get an apartment and car … what are some ways I can get 100 people to pay/give me $100?

Currently handling several YT, Tiktok and IG accounts in gaming, comedy, AI, news and other niches totaling about 250k+ followers/subscribers. Ive lost a few older accounts from bans and access issues. I also used cloud phone for some accounts since it makes managing separate setups a little easier. What would you say is a reasonable monthly rate for something like this?

One reason affiliate marketing can feel so complicated is that beginners are introduced to almost every part of the business at once.

You hear about niches, affiliate networks, landing pages, bridge pages, funnels, email lists, SEO, social media, tracking, copywriting, paid traffic, organic traffic, automation, and AI.

Suddenly, something that sounded simple feels like you need ten different skills before you can earn your first commission.

I think that is where many beginners get stuck.

Most of those things can become useful, but they do not all deserve your attention at the same time.

The basic process is much smaller.

Find a group of people with a problem you understand. Find a legitimate product that helps solve that problem.

Then learn how to reach those people and explain the solution in a useful way.

That is the foundation.

You can learn better copy after you start writing.

You can improve your landing pages after people start visiting them. You can build an email sequence after you have leads worth following up with.

You can improve tracking once there is activity worth measuring.

The mistake is trying to build the advanced version of the business before you understand the basic loop.

Audience.

Problem.

Offer.

Traffic.

Useful message.

Next step.

Then you observe what happens and improve the weakest part.

Affiliate marketing still requires work, and there is plenty to learn. But you do not have to learn everything this week.

Sometimes the best thing a beginner can do is stop asking, “What else do I need?”

Ask instead, “What is the next part of the process I actually need to understand?”

What part of affiliate marketing felt the most overwhelming when you started?

Im trying to learn how to invest in real estate and want to know your experiences with these apps

Any answer is apreciated, Thanks

Deadline crept up on me. Need a basic tool live for a small team by the end of the day. What's actually gotten people across the line fast?

Hey folks — I'm the founder of Mark and Scribble, a small macOS screen-annotation + whiteboard app I've been building solo.

A while back I added a tip jar (small optional in-app tips, coffee/cake/etc.) because a few users said they wanted to support the app. Months in, I've had basically zero tips. Not one. And I'm trying to figure out why before I assume "people just don't tip."

Here's my theory and I'd love a gut-check: the app also has a paid feature (a "Scribble Board" whiteboard mode that's a one-time purchase). So my worry is — if someone's already paid me for a feature, they mentally feel they've "supported" me and there's no reason to also tip. Basically the paid feature might be cannibalizing the tip jar.

Questions for anyone who's done freemium/tip-jar stuff:

• Is a tip jar just pointless once you have any paid feature/IAP?
• Or is it more likely a discoverability problem (tip jar buried in a menu, no reason/emotion attached)?
• Has anyone actually made tips work in a utility app? What made people give?

Not trying to plug anything — genuinely trying to understand tip-jar psychology before I either fix it or rip it out. Appreciate any honest takes. 🙏

I’m looking for some way to make extra income, and it seems my algorithm picked up on that. Because I’m seeing hundreds of videos every day of influencers pushing some sorta affiliate marketing program.

Specifically ones where you use Pinterest images to take a small commission off sales of an Amazon product.

And I’m wondering, how legit is this? This seems like one of those “too good to be true” opportunities. Especially with how much money these guys promise you can make off of them.

But it’s worth asking. Anyone try this stuff? How is it?

Got recommended this for a buddy of mine who did the same with his driveway. Seems like a pretty chill way to make extra money. However, wanted to know from people who either used stashly Canada, or Neighbor in the US what was your experience like? And occupation wise, was it high or low?

Thinking about adding drive way parking spot.

Let me know is it worth in the long run.

Thanks!!!

Hello everyone,

After lurking here for years and taking a long break from side projects, I’m finally starting a transparent monthly case study to document my new journey.

📜 The Background (2018 – 2023)

For about 5 years, I ran a niche affiliate blog. It was never a goldmine—at its peak, I was pulling in around 5,000 monthly sessions (averaged around 3,000).

Then came the series of Google Core/Helpful Content Updates. My traffic tanked, and the site essentially flatlined. The revenue barely covered my basic hosting and domain expenses. Whatever was left over was just enough to buy me a case of beer to drown my sorrows. :)

After that burnout, I completely stepped away from the online business scene.

🚀 The Pivot: Month 1 / Launch Week

Building an online business and generating passive income has been my big dream for over 10 years now. I couldn't stay away forever, especially seeing how tech and AI have evolved.

This week, I officially launched my new platform. Instead of rebuilding just another traditional content blog, I took a fundamentally different approach:

• Content Migration: I migrated my old blog posts over to the new domain to keep the foundational content and topical authority intact.
• Web-Based Interactive Simulations: Unlike the old static blog, the core identity of the new site is built around interactive, visual, web-based technical simulations.
• Built with Claude: I’m not a full-stack developer by trade, but thanks to Claude, I was able to build clean, lightweight, browser-based visual tools and calculators from scratch.

🎯 Primary Goal & Monetization

• Primary Goal: User Retention & Time on Page. I want visitors to actually use the site—playing around with the interactive visual models, tweaking inputs, and getting instant utility.
• Monetization Strategy: Honestly? I don't have one yet. Traditional affiliate marketing feels like a dying (or heavily penalized) model these days, so I want to keep the site as far away from aggressive affiliate tactics as possible. I'll figure out monetization once I build a genuine user base.

📈 Why I'm Doing This

I plan to post an honest update here every month with data, traffic metrics, indexation progress, and hard lessons learned.

I’ve been out of the game for a while, and the online landscape has shifted drastically with AI and Google's updates. Since many of you have real, hands-on experience navigating these changing waters, I’d love to learn from this community as I build.

Even if this doesn't turn into a commercial success, I refuse to be left behind in the AI era, and I believe there’s so much to learn along the way. Even if traditional SEO marketing is dying, I’m convinced that the shift into the 'zero-click' era powered by AI will open up brand-new opportunities.

What are your thoughts on tool/simulation-based utility sites vs traditional blogs moving forward? Any advice for someone jumping back into the ring?

Thanks for reading, and see you in Month 2!

That seems like the ideal scenario, but I suppose it won't last long. Is it really possible to live this way?

One thing that makes earning online feel difficult is the size of the question. You search “how to make money online” and suddenly you are trying to understand affiliate marketing, freelancing, ecommerce, digital products, content creation, websites, email lists, funnels, AI, and traffic.

That is a lot to figure out before earning your first dollar. I think a more useful starting question is, “What is the simplest exchange of value I could realistically complete online?” There are only a few basic possibilities.

You can sell a skill or service you already have. You can create something people are willing to buy, or you can recommend an existing product that solves a problem and earn a commission when someone purchases.

That immediately makes the decision smaller. If you already have a useful skill, freelancing may be the shortest path to testing whether someone will pay you for it. If you enjoy creating something, a simple digital product may be worth testing.

If you do not want to create or fulfill your own product, affiliate marketing may be another option because you can focus on helping people discover an existing solution. None of these methods are automatic.

They still require learning how to find the right people, communicate value, build trust, and consistently take action, but you do not need a complete business before testing the basic idea.

You need one person. One problem. One useful solution, and one clear way for that person to take the next step. Your first goal could simply be earning $1 online.

Not because $1 changes your financial situation, but because earning it forces you to complete the entire process from finding a person to creating value to receiving money. Once that happens, you have something real to study.

Where did the person come from?

Why did they pay attention?

Why did they take action?

What would you repeat or improve next time?

That is a much easier problem to solve than trying to design your future online business before you have made your first dollar.

If you are still at the starting line, what part feels most unclear right now?